NASA Invents a Folding Solar Panel Inspired by Origami

This is a variation on a well-known technique: http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~sdg/dstruct/wrapping.html

Folding fan -like circular solar panels by ATK were scheduled for NASA's Orion spacecraft, but at least for starters it's instead going to look just like ESA's ATV with four rectangular "fingers", since the service module is ATV-derived.

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/mpcv/

Wouldn't it be better to have a motor to spin it open and closed rather than having multiple motors to pull it open?

The Miura fold is a simpler way to accomplish this, requiring only a single diagonal force to unfold it.

It's pretty handy for (disposable) maps, too!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miura_fold

I love combining art and science like this. Here is an article that has a video about the project - http://news.byu.edu/archive13-nov-origami.aspx